Innovative Miller likes life on ‘edge’

Whoever first called Bode Miller the “Pete Rose of skiing” was onto something.

Just don’t read that the wrong way. America’s most complicated gold-medal contender does not have a gambling problem. Not with money, anyway.

But like baseball’s exiled “Hit King,” Miller is a self-taught, self-made, hardheaded superstar who’s got a very big problem with authority. Not that it’s always a bad thing, in his case.

We’ll get to Miller’s (not quite) apology in a moment. Suffice it to say here that his carelessness hurt the U.S. ski team and federation, aggravated the sponsors who made it possible for him to live like a sheik in retirement, and sent conflicting signals to some kids he cares about.

But to explain why those aren’t worst things in the world, either, some background:

World-class skiers live on the edge by necessity. A few, like Miller, also happen to be out there by choice. That much is apparent seconds after he barrels out of the starting gate. Most racers head down the hill looking to avoid trouble. Miller courts it. It’s not the conventional route, and it’s not always the smartest one in a sport where pop quizzes are sprung with the speedometer clicking at close to 100 mph.

But that’s Bode.

Remember how often Rose used to slide headfirst into bases, sometimes it seemed, just because he could? Well that’s Bode, too. He remains as much a snowboarder in style, philosophy and upbringing as a skier. To him, racing is sometimes as much about the thrill as the reward.

Miller brought that attitude and an outsider’s resume into the tightly wound U.S. ski establishment as a youngster and wasn’t always welcomed with open arms. But the coaches grousing about his reckless approach and the higher-ups tsk-tsking some of the things that came out of his mouth learned soon enough to love the numbers he put up on the flashing clock at the bottom of a hill. And they took him, grudgingly.

Then a funny thing happened. Turned out Miller was right about a lot of things. He just won’t let anybody forget that.

In the last five years, skis have gotten shorter by half, tips have broadened and the biggest benefits are being reaped by racers who have the strength, reflexes and daring to handle dynamic weight shifts at high speeds. That’s why Miller can slam gates and fall nearly all the way to the ground – he’s brushed a hip, spectacularly, at 65 mph on more than one occasion and stayed up – and still climb onto the medal podium afterward.

When he arrived in the U.S. program, most of the training was still geared toward power lifting, which is great training for handling static weight loads, but far less effective at simulating what really happens on a slope. The reason Miller has been the best skier on the planet the last 18 months or so is because he was ahead of the curve even back then.

Anybody who watched the much-ballyhooed “60 Minutes” segment could have figured that out.

Miller’s few lines to the effect of, “If you ever tried to ski when you’re wasted, it’s not easy,” garnered most of the attention. But the really fascinating part was watching him work out with a weighted wheelbarrow on a gravel floor in a shed behind the house where he grew up.

Nearly every story about Miller’s childhood mentions the hippie parents and the home without electricity or running water to explain his iconoclastic bent. But they fail to connect it to his development as a skier. Most of the unorthodox methods he taught himself, it should be noted, are fast becoming orthodoxy in the sport.

Unfortunately, guys like Miller always have to be right, even when they’re wrong. He’s railed against the way corporate interests have drained most of the fun from skiing, and how the media has stolen the rest. Yet that’s disingenuous from someone who shows up for interviews and apologies in a jacket plastered with sponsors’ logos. Especially since Miller knows such appearances are only mandatory for athletes who win consistently or have something to sell. Like we said, he ought to know what “part-and-parcel” means as well as anyone.

Apparently, though, Miller is conflicted on a few scores. Frankly, so are the rest of us. We want our champions to be brave, funny and unconventional – but only up to a point. We talk about football players being courageous for stepping onto a playing field, but hurtling yourself down a mountain is a whole other level. Having a drink to wind down afterward is defensible. Skiing drunk is not.

Bragging about it on “60 Minutes” and in “Maxim” magazine is dumber still.

Miller never hid his penchant for partying from the writers who covered him during the long, non-Olympic slog. But he has to know the audience stakes just went up. Way up.

Miller’s bosses at U.S. Skiing, his coaches and teammates all bent over backward trying to accommodate his singular travel, training and media arrangements. He owes them for letting him do things his way.

After all, any man brave, inventive and tough enough to change an entire sport should be smart enough, too, to know when to keep his mouth shut.